Book excerpt: The volume is a collection of 20 refereed articles written in connection with lectures presented at the 12th International Conference on Finite Fields and Their Applications ('Fq12') at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY in July 2015. Finite fields are central to modern cryptography and secure digital communication, and hence must evolve rapidly to keep pace with new technologies. Topics in this volume include cryptography, coding theory, structure of finite fields, algorithms, curves over finite fields, and further applications.Contributors will include: Antoine Joux (Fondation Partenariale de l'UPMC, France); Gary Mullen (Penn State University, USA); Gohar Kyureghyan (Otto-von-Guericke Universität, Germany); Gary McGuire (University College Dublin, Ireland); Michel Lavrauw (Università degli Studi di Padova, Italy); Kirsten Eisentraeger (Penn State University, USA); Renate Scheidler (University of Calgary, Canada); Michael Zieve (University of Michigan, USA).